


The Language of Flowers

by Moonsheen



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Consensual Sex Pollen, First Time, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, Sex Pollen, Tree Sex, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 15:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11992830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: After another successful Rite, the original Nightwings deal with one of the more...awkward quirks of Sap biology.





	The Language of Flowers

The Rite ended. The adversary faded over the dark curve of the ridge. Above, the clouds began to close in, and the night dimmed. Together, the Nightwings stood in darkness.

“Finally,” said Erisa, at last. She tore her mask back. She threw her arms over her head, her deep yawn only interrupted by an even deeper sneeze. “NGHK. Ugh, I thought that match would never _end_. Remind me never to ever conduct a Rite like that again. I thought maybe I might sneeze the damn orb into the pyre! An ALL NEW TECHNIQUE.”

“Blasphemy, Erisa,” said Oralech, with all that old exasperation, but there was no real heat in his voice. “There was nothing for it, this time.”

“Only because your damn teas aren’t _doing_ anything,” said Erisa, sniffling into the sleeve of her raiments. They were holy too, but there was no point in admonishing her for this bit of blasphemy either. Oralech would be washing the whole set tomorrow anyway, rank as they were with sweat and scattered stardust. “So. Where to next, Sandalwood?”

The sap gazed quietly up at the sky. Oralech watched him. Around them, the a night wind began to pick up, ruffling through the flowers growing around his collar.

“Volfred,” said Oralech, after a time.

“Ah, yes,” said Volfred, looking away. It took his eyes a few seconds to refocus. “It’s Lu, the Vernal Star. I see before us a great forest, in full bloom.”

“The Glade of Lu, then,” muttered Oralech.

“And more flowers,” groaned Erisa, now shrugging out of her robes in earnest. “The Scribes are toying with us. You know what, that’s it for me tonight. I’m out . Fuck this. Fuck the Scribes. Fuck these Rites. Love all of you, but I’m going to camp out on the ridge. I’ll see you tomorrow.  Don’t leave without me.”

“Erisa,” began Oralech.

“Doc, you can brew me up all the tea in the world,” said Erisa, “but I need to sleep and breathe at the same time tonight.”

And, tossing her balled up raiments at Oralech, she vanished into the darkness, sneezing the whole way.

“Hm. She damned the Scribes and the Rites, but neither of us,” said Oralech. “This victory has cheered her, some.”

“In general, but I must question her feelings towards me,” said Volfred, returning to the present in full. He helped Oralech with Erisa’s mask. “It would have been a very different story had my condition cost us the Rite. I fear I risked us all tonight.”

“It can’t be helped,” said Oralech.

“Nevertheless, you should know I am not normally this indiscreet,” said Volfred. He had bound his wrists to keep the flowers there from causing too much distraction, but they itched against the bandages. “You needn’t spare me. I know this is a bother to you all.“

“It would be more of a bother to do without your guidance,” Oralech reminded him.

“My dear friend, you are too kind,” said Volfred, with a sigh, unrooting his feet from the loose earth. He turned back towards the wagon, but here his own condition -- as well as the exhaustion of the Rite -- got the better of him, and he swayed. 

Oralech took Volfred’s arm and laid it over his shoulders. “And what would you do without us, besides,” he said, with a ghost of a smile as he helped him up the wagon steps.

“Find some clearing to be rid of this in a day or so,” groaned Volfred. The truth was, now that the Rite had passed, he remembered his own personal misery in this regard. Everything felt hot and itchy, nothing more so than the spot where Oralech’s solid arm brushed his back, or where Oralech’s hands wrapped over his left branch. “I would say it is not my people’s way to subject others to this, but the younger among us… know at least that I had not expected this for at least another two years. The Downside has rendered so many things beyond my predictions.”

“As it is wont to do,” said Oralech, with infuriating ease. He was close enough his breath shook the blossoms that sprouted around Volfred’s brow, and the taste of it in his leaves dizzied him all over again. “I would trade your unexpected protrusions for my own.”

Meaning, of course, the little bumps that were beginning form beneath his hair, which he so seldom talked about.

“...and, you have let me go on quite enough.”

“Peace, Volfred,” murmured Oralech, close to his whorled ear as they ducked under the door. “Let me make light of something, for a change.”

The truth was Volfred had felt the start of the blooms come on several days before the Rite was to commence. An unexpected complication. Volfred was no fresh-ringed sprout, with soft bark and a tendency to flower at the hint of a temperate wind. No, well-rooted as he was, Volfred been able to predict his seasonal cycles with the unerring awareness all of his kind had towards potential weakness.

A sap in bloom was terribly vulnerable. Emotional. Highly reactive. Beautiful, and absolutely clouded in pollen which robbed almost everyone in a nearby radius either of their senses or their sinuses. Which effect often completely arbitrary. There were some younger of their kind that were happy to use these times to their advantage. They might flaunt their magnificent blooms and leveraged the desire than inspired into a wealthy patron or a well-connected suitor. This was a rather childish pastime quite beneath an older sap, who knew the better plans involved a bit more than sex appeal, and who knew the better thing to do was to find a discreet grove full of equally discreet peers and have at until it was well out of your system.

For past few decades, Volfred’s season came on a regular five year cycle, when the weather was reasonable. The inhospitable Downside, with its unpredictable climate and fast shifting temperatures had moved his up by about three years. When he’d felt the first buds, he’d immediately considered excusing himself from the wagon  -- but the stars would not wait for Nightwings, and the Nightwings would not do without him, and with that in mind, he had carried regardless. Even as the wreath of flowers erupted from his head from his wrists. Even as the pollen filled the Blackwagon with a cloying, sickly scent which left them either sneezing or flushed with unnatural fever. Oralech had brewed up a medicinal tea to dampen the symptoms among their retinue. This had worked on Tariq, who hadn’t been too strongly affected anyway, and Oralech, who had a strong constitution regardless -- but Erisa and Ti’zo had not been so fortunate.

Indeed Ti’zo was, at present, puffed up on the shoulder of the Lone Minstrel, doing his best not to sneeze and squeak at the same time. As Oralech pushed open the door of the Blackwagon, Ti’zo looked up with slightly bloodshot eyes.

“Krii-kiiii!” he cried, which Volfred understood to mean that Ti’zo was grateful to the Rite was a success, and deeply apologetic he could not participate more directly this time.

“No apologies. Your time will come,” said Oralech, warmly. He helped Volfred into the chair by the wagon window, producing a waterskin from one of the cabinets on the wall. He poured half into a dish for Volfred.  He rested it on the floor and, despite Volfred’s weak protests, picked up his ankles and set them there. When that was done, he straightened and took his own fill from the skin itself. Water beaded down his chin. Volfred was all too aware of why that particular detail caught his interest just then. ...Ah, how frustrating it was to be in bloom. Every little thing just seemed to set him off.

Tariq glanced their way. He exchanged a quick look with Ti’zo.

“There is something you may do tonight if you should like,” whispered the minstrel, with that peculiar pointedness. Despite the softness of his voice, it always seemed to carry to all corners of the Blackwagon. One of his particular unearthly gifts, no doubt. “There is, I believe, a fishing pool of some short distance from here. At this hour, the fish glow quite brightly. It may be of interest to you.”

“Skrii?” Ti’zo’s noise indicated he was certainly interested in this concept, but was somewhat puzzled that Tariq should bring it up just then.

“Would that we all find some satisfaction on this evening,” said Tariq, and handed Ti’zo a handkerchief.

Ti’zo’s eyes went big with comprehension.

“Kriiii! Hi hi hi,” he said, hiding his expression behind the handkerchief. One had the sense he had decided that Tariq’s suggestion was in fact a very good one. He would very much like to see these fish, and he would like to do it at just that instant. With Tariq, and no one else.

“I’ve put you all out enough,” said Volfred, emerging from his own dizziness with concern. “If it is a matter of your comfort, I should be glad to excuse myself until morning--”

“SKRRIII-kikikiiiii,” said Ti’zo, with emphasis, by which he meant: No, it was not a matter of his comfort at all. He was always up to showing fish a good what-for, and also he hoped they had a good evening, and also that they remembered to stay hydrated. He was told those things were quite important to some species.  

At which point Oralech put down his waterskin and pressed his sleeve over his mouth.

“Come along, my friend,” said Tariq, lips twitching very slightly. And together he and the imp vanished out the door like the moon behind the clouds, leaving Oralech and Volfred staring after them.

“The imp has quite the imagination,” said Oralech, in a rather clipped voice.

“Our victory is marred by all manner of mortification,” sighed Volfred. “And our allies abandon us in legion. Have you reconsidered my leave?”

“You would leave me alone in the Blackwagon?” challenged Oralech.

Volfred resettled. “At your insistence, then.”

“I will put on some tea.”

He did. The scent was almost enough to vye for power against the pollen, but only almost.  Despite Oralech’s own weariness he moved with a purpose throughout the Blackwagon. Volfred followed him with his eyes, his own weariness nagging at his senses but erased by the general agitation in his fingers and his roots. Wakefulness without being truly wakeful.  How bothersome it was. Volfred noted with some faint amusement the care Oralech took to give the Beyonder Orb a wide berth. Well, at least Sandra ought to be entertained.

Oralech returned with the pot and some cups.

“All this bother for something that should have been well past me,” mused Volfred, aloud. “I am glad your teas at least have spared someone.”

“Hmph,” said Oralech. “Don’t flatter me, Volfred. It hasn’t worked at all.”

“You haven’t sneezed once these last three days.”

“I haven’t,” agreed Oralech, staring straight at him. “Those weren’t my symptoms.”

Volfred took his meaning immediately.

“Ah,” he said, “then…”

“Yes,” said Oralech, and here, for the first time, Volfred noticed the points of red that rose in Oralech’s cheekbones, and the red in the hint of ears that poked through his unkempt hair. After that long uncomfortable silence, Volfred couldn’t help but laugh, a creaky laugh with an edge of helplessness.

“Then it would seem, my friend, that I am now four for four on putting out my companions,” said Volfred, “and we have all triumphed in the face of greater adversity than I believe the Rites intended. Why do you insist that I stay? You have the right to a good night’s sleep yourself.”

Oralech only rolled his eyes at this particular performance. “We are grown men, Volfred. I am capable of mastering myself.”

If he was aware of the double entendre, he didn’t care. He just stared straight forward with an even greater intensity, which Volfred knew by now meant that he was set to a course, and would not be shaken from it.

“I am certain you are,” said Volfred, at last, “and I am showing the amount of mastery of a soft-barked stripling. I would say my people are not known for taking advantage of this state and its effect over others, however--”

“--they like any edge they can get,” finished Oralech. Volfred nodded, shutting his eyes.

“And tend towards the flamboyant displays,” sighed Volfred. “But, please know, Oralech, I am quite a bit beyond those pastimes. Desire is an easy power to hold over others, but it is not something leveraged over or by the strong, and I would never take those liberties with you.”

“Hah. You speak as though I’d _mind_ ,’ thought Oralech.

He thought it rather loudly. He thought it so loudly that Volfred read it like an open book, and even if he hadn’t it was clear on the doctor’s face. The scent of the tea wasn’t enough to clear the scent of pollen floating in the wagon, but that stab of desire through the haze left Volfred’s mind almost clear. He hesitated, wondering for a moment if this were simply an errant thought, if Oralech had had no intention of reaching out to him just then, but Oralech put one of his hands over Volfred’s on the table, and rather settled that.

“You speak as though I’d mind,” Oralech repeated out loud. He he hadn’t broken his stare, but for a moment a twinge appeared at the side of his mouth, the doctor’s one allowance to his nerves at giving the thought voice.

“My dear friend,” said Volfred, carefully, turning his hand under Oralech’s and bringing it, carefully, up his arm, squeezing at his shoulder -- neither full acceptance or a rebuff. “These circumstances are not ideal…”

“If you are asking if I would feel the same without the damnable pollen, then the answer is ‘yes,’” grit out Oralech. “If it is not physically possible, tell me now and I will set it aside. If it is not what you hold for me in your heart, tell me now, and the issue will never come between us again. But, if you you expect me to defend my autonomy like a thesis, as though I have the patience to be a scholar right now, by the Scribes, you can go to the Beyond and _I_ will go join Ti’zo on fishing trip--”

“No,” murmured Volfred, he reached carefully: with his mind and with his arms. Moving his hand from Oralech’s arm to his cheek, taking his face between his hands. “No, no need for that, my dear.”

“Good. Your scent has been driving me mad,” gasped Oralech, and, taking that touch for the permission it was, he surged forward. His enthusiasm knocked his teacup to the floor, but it was quite beyond both of them to take note of that.

 

Volfred’s blossoms were small and red. When Oralech unwound the protective bandages around his wrists, they sprang free with nearly alarming forwardness. Oralech only laughed.

“They are beautiful,” he said, his hands are already glittering with pollen. “I was not sure if it was polite to say.”

“Polite, no? Appreciated? Very much so,” said Volfred, as the bandages fell to the floor.  Oralech handled the blooms carefully: first just a light brush with his fingertips, fingertips that had not yet begun to sharpen into claws, fingertips that were still as deft as a doctor required them to be -- and Volfred’s answering shudder in response to this touch told Oralech everything about this particular aspect of his anatomy. With confidence, then, he ran his hand through the nest of them, finding one that was  particularly well formed and stroking it with a firmness that nearly caused Volfred to worm right out of his chair.

He settled instead for bracing his other arm against Oralech’s back.

Oralech paused. “Too sensitive?”

“No, no… nothing like that.”

“Good.” And, emboldened, Oralech pressed his face into the larger nest of blossoms around Volfred’s neck. His breath was hot, and each exhalation is like a bolt of energy through Volfred’s whole trunk. When he found larger blossom, one of the ones nested in the junction of Volfred’s shoulder and neck, he caught one of the petals carefully between his lips. With agonizing slowness, and even more agonizing deliberation, he teased it into a state of more openness, so that he might, with great care, take a taste of some of the nectar itself. Volfred lost himself nearly entirely, and each and every one of his blossoms lost it in turn, each opening full despite the dimness of the wagon. Pollen choked the air, but Oralech didn’t seem to mind, he just moved to the next blossom, and the next after that, and at the fourth or fifth, Volfred lost it entirely, his hand clutching at the back of Oralech’s raiments. Vines and roots wound themselves helplessly around his legs.

Oralech pulled away and leaned his forehead against Volfred’s chest. His breath was ragged and unfulfilled. Through his shoots, Volfred could taste it the way he always had -- tea, and now something a bit more familiar. Volfred seized Oralech’s head, pulling him to his mouth so that he could drink some of his breathe with relish. It filled him with a deep headiness. He understood then, from the want beating out of Oralech’s mind in counterpoint to his heart, that the doctor had considered this action for some time. It was all he had hoped for, but now he lay frozen by that very hope and that want, because while he had considered all the ways this might be possible or impossible, he had forgotten -- as he always forgot -- his own wants.

“...My friend, you have been more than accommodating to my needs,” Volfred murmured,  sucking in Oralech’s trembling breaths between each pause, “but what might I do for you?”

Words failed Oralech, but his mind didn’t. Between that, and the heavy hand that grasped Volfred’s arm -- beneath the blooms -- and dragged it between them, down the front of his raiments, Volfred had a good idea of how to proceed.

  
  
In the morning, Oralech bundled up the laundry and swept out the interior of the Blackwagon. It was no small task. Over the course of a night every available surface had accrued a layer of sparkling green pollen, a mystery that at least two of the wagon’s remaining occupants would keep happily between them. He had just finished cleaning the wagon windows when Tariq and Ti’zo returned from their fishing trip, a prize catch in hand and looking considerably better rested. Tariq mercifully said nothing. Ti’zo launched himself from the minstrels shoulder, happy to flutter about Oralech’s head.

“Kriiihihi!” cried Ti’zo, a screech that indicated that he had caught a very valuable specimen, and also that he hoped Oralech had managed some sleep himself, and would be ready for the coming journey to the next Rite.

“Certainly,” said Oralech, but Ti’zo cut him off with another squeak, one which suggested that Ti’zo hoped he had not gotten _too_ much sleep. He wanted to know he was well taken care of.

“Hmph. That is between him and I, I think. But thank you,” said Oralech, tapping Ti’zo on the nose. Ti’zo twittered fondly, and fluttered off in search of breakfast.

  
  
Erisa rejoined them mid-morning, with a slight spring to her step and bundle of foraged fruit over her shoulder.

“All right, sleep’s had. We going or not?” she offered by way of a greeting, but, when she noticed Volfred reading quietly at the table, she couldn’t help but pause. “Huh, Sandalwood. Looking a bit less floral today.”

Volfred glanced up from his study, one long finger pausing at a line. The blooms on his wrists had receded significantly, a number of petals had fallen on the pages. Oralech had set out a bowl to collect them. A number more would be gone, by the day’s end.  “Yes, it would seem that this season is winding down at last. I take it you are less troubled today?”

Erisa paused in the center of the wagon, taking a few perfunctory sniffs. If the rich scent that now permeated the walls caught her attention, she let it go. “I can breathe again, if that’s what you mean. Heh, that was fast. What was it, Doc finally figure out something that worked?”

Volfred paused, consideringly.

“Yes,” he said, with great fondness, “I suppose he did.”

**Author's Note:**

> And yes, friends, they totally forgot about the Beyonder Crystal.
> 
> EDITED TO ADD: [Awesome user hippo-dog has done fanart!](http://hippo-dog.tumblr.com/post/165068641749/oralech-pressed-his-face-into-the-larger-nest-of) Please go like it on Tumblr, it's gorgeous!


End file.
